1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to a slot-in optical disk drive, and more particularly to an emergency ejection device for a slot-in optical disk drive which can be operated by hand to eject a disk when the optical disk drive malfunctions or when there is power outage.
2. Description of the Related Art
A slot-in optical disk drive utilizes a gear set to drive a rod, a roller or a wheel belt to guide the insertion or ejection of a disk. When it fails to eject a disk, the casing of the slot-in optical disk drive has to be opened in order to take out the disk. However, it is hard to disassemble the precision slot-in optical disk drive for a general user. Especially for the slot-in drive disposed on an automobile audio system, a computer or a home theater system, a professional need to open the mainframe first, and then the slot-in disk drive can be disassembled to take out the disk.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional emergency ejection device for a slot-in optical disk drive according to Taiwan Patent No. 092108324. The conventional ejection device 1 includes a power supply unit and a control switch 3 to turn on or off a power supply to rotate a driving gear 2 on the front end. When in use, the driving gear 2 on the front end of the ejection device 1 is inserted in the slot-in optical disk drive. The driving gear 2 meshes with a worm 5 of a feeding motor 4 in the slot-in optical disk drive. The control switch 3 is turned on to rotate the driving gear 2 for driving the worm 5 of the feeding motor 4. Aworm wheel 6 drives a gear set 7 which links a roller. As a result, the roller is driven to rotate for inserting or ejecting a disk, and a clamping unit is driven to clamp or release the disk.
The transmission of the low-lead worm 5 and the worm wheel 6 has self-locking property. In other words, when the worm 5 rotates, the worm wheel 6 is driven to rotate as well. However, when the worm wheel 6 rotates, the worm 5 is not driven to rotate. The slot-in optical disk drive utilizes this character to stabilize the driven parts, so that the parts do not move due to vibration, for prevent the slot-in disk drive from being affected. The conventional ejection device 1 for a slot-in optical disk drive needs to mesh with the worm 5 to rotate the gear set 7. The gear set 7 includes eight gears with different gear ratios linking each other. The conventional ejection device 1 for a slot-in optical disk drive rotates the worm 5 by power, and the worm 5 needs to rotate more than 200 revolutions to eject a complete disk. The ejection device 1 is a unique tool which is not available everywhere. When using an optical disk drive, a general user does not purchase an ejection device. Further, the user does not carry the bulky ejection device everywhere. When malfunctioning, the optical disk drive has to be sent to a repair center for taking out the disk. Even a professional can not use a general tool to force eject the disk from the slot of the slot-in optical disk drive and has to disassemble the mainframe to take out the disk. Furthermore, the gear for rotating the roller in the gear set 7 still meshes with the gear set 7 when the rollers ascend or descends, which increases the resistance against the ejection of the disk. Therefore, there is still a lot of limitation to be solved in the use of conventional emergency ejection device for a slot-in optical disk drive.